7/31/11

Day 37

I found myself at a flashmob today. I found out what they were doing via Meetup.com, and since I didn't want to spend the time to learn a stupid dance, I decided to just watch.They were dancing along to that one LMFAO song, "Party Rock Anthem" or something. ::shrugs::

Everyone who participated in it seemed so young. I'd have to say that it was mostly teenagers who did this. Teenagers, and one random older guy on the side I noticed.


So you can re-live the moment:

N'Yawk

Can living in New York City change you?

Sure. But so can living in any other city that isn't your home. But they say the effect is magnified when the new city you're living in is New York City.

So have I changed? Well, that depends on whether you believe people can change or whether fundamentally they'll always stay the same. I wouldn't say I'm a different person since moving out here 37 days ago, but I have noticed some new nuances about myself:


If I don't see at least 500 different people per day, it feels strange.
...and the first 100 or so people I would see on my morning commute alone. I first noticed this when I visited DC last week. DC compared to NYC is small town America (once you take out that whole thing about being the capital city and the home of the government of the most powerful country in the world). I wasn't used to the subway that only had two tracks and the fact that I didn't have fight my way around multiple bodies just to stay on the sidewalk and the fact that I can look far for stretches and not see a mass of people. I felt out of place.

Similarly...

If I look up and I can see the sky unobstructed, it also seems odd.
This was also something I noticed when visiting DC. In New York, if you look up at night, you don't see the moon and the stars. You see the sides of tall buildings, lit windows, neon signs, and some sort of black backdrop that stretches further out than the top of these buildings. Last week I learned that the tallest building in Washington DC was the Washington Monument, which relative to the skyscrapers in NYC, is relatively tiny.

Compared to other cities around the country (but not the world, that's a whole other subject), NYC is really dirty. But I've stopped caring.
The sidewalk is just black with old gum? Meh. Greasy and sticky door handles? Whatever. Stained subway seats? Oooh, a place to sit! I wouldn't say I've become desensitized to these things, but I do say I now have the credibility to criticize anyone who complains about San Francisco being "dirty."

I don't mind doing stuff alone anymore.
When you're in a brand new city and you want to do all that touristy and exploring the city crap, and the only people you know are people who have been here for years and therefore don't want to join you in Times Square, you're kinda forced to do some things on your own. I've found that if I see something I want to check out that is "so New York," many of my existing friends here in the city are really meh about it. Well not I! I just got here! I still see the city in slight-pinkish tinted glasses! So if it comes to it, I will go a Mets game by lonesome, I will explore a museum without any companions, I will show up to an Improv Everywhere routine all by myself.

Which sometimes lead to...

I've bought into the concept of "rent-a-friends"
Yes. This site actually exists.

So while I've enjoyed doing things on my own and not giving a fuck about it, I do yearn to still meet people and make a circle of friends here beyond my already existing friends and coworkers. As a result, I've found myself at various meet and greet events through various channels. Meetup.com has been a constant source of my human interaction, the UCLA Alumni Association was another. What I've found is that almost every other weekend, I would find a group of people to hang out with for the day. We'll talk and share stories at a bbq together, or we'd drive around the city together, storm a water fight, and later go out to drinks. But the funny thing is that most of the time, numbers aren't even exchanged. Contact information is not shared. Hanging out beyond the allotted time slot is out of the question.

Perhaps it's the nature of Meetup.com. People figure they'll just see each other at whatever the next event is. Perhaps this whole concept of "rent-a-friend" for a day is common practice when it comes to using the internet to meet people. Or maybe it's just me (no, no, of course not. My mom says I'm awesome).

"it's probably just best to assume that every surface here is radioactive"
-DL

7/30/11

Day 36

At the end of every month in summer (June, July, and August), someone arranges some huge water fight in Central Park that thousands of people show up to. I didn't actually see thousands of people, but I'm assuming it's because we were a bit late, or rather that people just arrived in waves (no pun intended).

Seeing as we were late to the party, we decided to wake the crowd up by storming them with our cheap generic K-Mart water guns. Here's a photo of us approaching the masses...And here we are finally in full sprint:...which is the point at which my cheap water gun decided to break after two presses of the trigger.

About to run into the crowd of water balloons, huge Super Soakers, buckets, and one guy with a high pressure compressor in his backpack to shoot a constant stream of water with nothing but a hunk of water filled plastic in my hands, I had no choice but to break through the huddled masses and hope I didn't get completely soaked.

I did.

7/29/11

Day 35

This here is the Lincoln Center, home of the Julliard School of music. Some of you may recognize this moreso from the movie "Black Swan." So every Thursday through Saturday, the Lincoln Center is supposed to have some sort of free outdoor concert at this shell-type looking theater. I had no idea who was playing, but figured I should check it out for good measure.
Unfortunately it started raining shortly after I sat down, and thus, I never got to find out who was playing today.

7/28/11

Day 34

Taking a 50% paycut for a career change and moving out to the most expensive city in America has left me to be one broke motherf*cker. As a result, I've had to take advantage of any chances for free food. Every Thursday my office buys bags of bagels, so those days I enjoy bagels for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other days, I scour the internet to see happenings and events around the city that I can crash and get free food at.

Is that just pathetic of me? Too bad. I've gotta do what I gotta do.

On the bright side, in addition to the wonderfully free food I get, I also get to enjoy whatever the event I'm crashing is featuring. Today - the Chelsea Art Walk, not unlike similar art walks I have attended in the past in Oakland and San Francisco.
Not sure if you can see this, but this large mosaic type thing is actually made out of dollar bills. See it?
No? Take a closer look:
Here too.Free food acquired: fruit platters and white wine.


Moving down the street, I went to another art gallery where the exhibit consisted of pictures taken by people on their cell phones.


The lower captions of the photos listed who took the picture, what app or effects they used, and the kind of phone they used.Free food acquired: Pesto feta and lettuce and tomato on flat bread, beer.

Dinner is served.

7/27/11

Day 33

We've recently run into a bit of a water problem here in the office. See, we recently switched over to a water cooler which hooks directly up to the water line, thereby eliminating the need for a water dispenser that requires these water bottles.

Problem is that we still have about 25 of these water bottles left.

Bigger problem is that when the company that stocks our water came in to pick up the dispenser, he didn't want it. Said he could only take 3, max.

So what's a small office of 15 people to do with 25 large bottles of water cooler water?

We have yet to find out.

7/26/11

Day 32

Arranged to go to a a Meetup.com event, got free movie tickets to see 50/50.

Got there, couldn't find the group.

Well, f that, I still got my free ticket, I'm watching my movie!

7/25/11

Day 31

WARNING: This is graphic.

Kinda.

Well, it's up to you.

Here you go:
Poor mouse. But better he's there than climbing into my bed at night, I suppose.

mm58

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

R.I.P.

7/24/11

Day 30

Touristy sightseeing in DC! If it isn't obvious what it is already, I'll chime in:
Unfortunately, the reflecting pool was dried up due to renovation. No re-enacting that Forrest Gump scene for me.

This is the National Mall's newest memorial, the World War II memorial. It just opened in 2004.
So the year it opened, Tennyson High School was chosen to hang this wreath, representing the state of California. I was supposed to be in that group of students who would hang it. But they kept me from going because I was suspended at the time...


The Smithsonian Castle:
The Capitol Building:

7/23/11

Day 29

Found my way to Washington DC for the weekend. What's nice about being out here in NYC is that I'm within 4-5 hours of plenty of fun major cities. Philadelphia and Boston are also within a visitable distance from me, so I'll eventually find my way out there too. First stop, the White House, which looks a lot smaller in real life than they make it seem in the movies: Hey look, it's the house on the 20 dollar bill!:
Washington DC's metro stations are incredibly dark...unless I've just grown accustomed to NYC's artificially lit tunnels.
The neighborhood I stayed in while in DC...
...isn't it just fucking adorable?
It's been a while since I've been in a town where the sky can be seen, the streets aren't crowded and there isn't a constant hum of honking, buses, and screaming.

7/22/11

Day 28

A friend of mine never has a shortage of restaurants she hears about on Food Network. She has her friends try out these restaurants, wherever they may be, so she can live vicariously through them. Since I'm in NYC, I'm covering all the stops here. First up, Doughnut Plant in the Lower East Side:
Forget the pink donuts on The Simpsons, this stuff is the real deal.

7/21/11

Day 27

Hey, so you've all heard that Borders is closing, right? So, to take advantage of all their liquidation sales, I made my way to the nearest Borders to me at Columbus Circle.

But as it turns out, the sales don't start till tomorrow. T'was still a nice view from the mall, though.

7/20/11

Day 26

Another view from our 20th floor office. Again, the concrete jungle beckons.

7/19/11

Day 25

That's the thing about NYC...you can just be walking anywhere...anywhere! And there would just happen to be some salsa group having a concert randomly.

7/18/11

Day 24

The view from the bottom of the moldy courtyard of my apartment, looking up. Concrete jungle, indeed.

mm57


If you recall, a few months back, I posted the actual version of this songfor another Music Monday. So, enjoy the solo violin cover of a mashup!

7/17/11

Day 23

Made my way to New Jersey for the first time, and needless to say, there's not much to say about it. I was at a quiet little suburb, which by East Coast standards, are a bit different from the burbs you'd see on the West Coast. For example, if you can see in this picture, there's no such thing as fences. There are other differences, but I won't get into it at the moment.

So I was at this UCLA alumni event in which we hosted a bbq for the incoming freshmen and their parents. It's interesting to see what kind of personality of student it takes to compel them to move across the country to go to college. What culminated in this sea of Jersey accents were discussions over adjusting to living on the other side of the country to the magnitude (ha ha...earthquakes? get it?) of California stereotypes (some of the most colorful being that we don't know how to drive in the rain, we are pussies when it comes to the weather, and we are just sooo much slower than the east coast folk).

7/16/11

Day 22

Participated in my first Improv Everywhere/Flashmob routine tonight. For those of you who have never heard of Improv Everywhere, they're a troupe of individuals who come up with some zany schemes or scenes for random people like yourself or I to participate in...in public. Their most famous routine is the Frozen Grand Central:
So tonight was one of their "MP3 Experiments," in which the people involved are instructed to download an MP3 posted on their website, to gather at a particular spot in NYC at a particular time, and press play at the same time. The MP3 contains music and instructions telling you what you need to do to cause a scene. Ideally, thousands of people will be involved and as such, produce some pretty impressive results. This was their routine last year:
This year, they gave explicit instructions for people to come in either black or white, depending on their birthday. We were also told to bring these items:
A bag (purse, backpack, messenger bag, shopping bag, etc.) that has the following items inside:
– a camera with a flash (not an iPhone, but an actual camera with an actual flash)
– a flash light
– Something that lights up that is not a camera or a flash light (should be able to fit in your backpack) (no laser pointers/fireworks/fire please)
– a glow stick (or glow ring or similar glow item)
– a mask (make your own if you don’t have one
For your sake, I won't tell you exactly what happened tonight. I'll wait for the video to be posted so you can see for yourself.